Not as Intense as Gary Keillor

I’ve felt off lately.

Not in a new or disturbing sense, but in a way that makes me believe I’ve been off for quite a long time and just haven’t realized it, or possibly just haven’t fixed it.

I’ve had super-terrible allergies for the past few months, and while I’m slightly ashamed to admit it, I laid on the couch for two days doing nothing, because I was suffering – Not in the real, I have an incurable disease way, but more in the 1st world troubles way. I brought a trash can and a roll of TP into the living room and blew the heck out of my nose, and felt very sorry for myself with every blow. It took me at least two hours of mental preparation every time I had to leave the house (to water some friends’ plants while they’re out of town). Also, I had to go to Walmart to make a couple of keys for the new roommate. That’s right, Walmart got a key-making machine that talks to you.

Other than those two things, I didn’t leave the house. I was convinced that I was actually sick (rather than just wimpy) with some sort of infectious disease, so I gave myself two days to rest before going to the Minute-Clinic and getting FOUR prescriptions and TWO over-the-counter-drug-recommendations to deal with my allergies. I’m now the happy owner of two nasal spray things, an inhaler, and some pills.

And you know what I realized while I was lounging around, feeling sorry for myself, and saving the universe from the Collectors?

I realized that I should lay around more often.

Way back in the day (four years ago or so) I used to fall asleep on the couch on a daily basis. I’d turn on a movie or TV show, then conk right out.

And I didn’t regret it one bit.

I also went for a walk every day.

I also did lots of work-out videos and didn’t run all that much.

And I didn’t feel guilty about those life-style choices. At all.

Then, I got some sort of idea that I was wasting time when I wasn’t busy. That I was going to get terribly fat if I didn’t run 10 miles a week. That my brain would rot if I played video games for more than a couple of hours a week. That I was a bad person if I stayed home when I didn’t have a good reason to. That God was disappointed in me when I wasn’t in Bible Study two or three nights a week.

Growing up does that to a girl.

I used to only put on real clothes if I knew I was going to see friends or colleagues. The rest of the time, I wore what was comfortable.

Nowadays, I’m always wearing shoes. Even to watch TV. Who needs shoes to watch TV?

So… challenge: I am much better at being my lounge-about self when no one is around, because having others around makes me feel fat and lazy. With Kendra moving in next month, I think it’s important that I do what I want to do.

My goal with the first roommates was to change. And I think I did – perhaps not in the ways I should have, and certainly not in the ways they wanted me to change, but I felt like it was an important step for me to grow up and live with other people.

Then, with Shasta, my goal was to survive and get life re-railed (because it felt very de-railed).

Now, I’ve got my own little house that I love, and my goal has been to settle in, which I’ve done very well.

Next goal: When Kendra moves in, I’d like to stay settled in. I want to be predictable, reliable, ordinary, relaxed, etc… and I want to change for Kendra when appropriate, but I think it’s a mistake going into anything with a plan to change, because God changes us when and how He wants to, and no amount of being busy and restless will help that.

Do Try Not to Hang Yourself

*Note: I’m borrowing and building thoughts from this here post at Desiring God.

I’m not sure why it never occurred to me before that Peter and Judas were in pretty similar situations while Jesus was dying.

You see, they both betrayed Him, but we really only talk about Peter with tones of sad, forgiving humility and we really only talk about Judas with tragic hatred. No one takes the time to look at Judas and see a reflection our own betrayal of Christ, but I wonder if it isn’t important for us to look at Him a with a little more empathy… because, I think I’m more like Him than I am like Peter.

Peter betrayed Jesus and then went out and built the church. Judas betrayed Him and then hung himself.

Sadly, I think I’m more prone to the Judas path than the Peter one. Once I realize I’ve messed up, I set the self-destruct sequence and spiral into oblivion. And really, the difference between the two disciples is deceptive.

When I think about Peter, it seems like he’s a good guy who messed up, and when I think about Judas, it seems like he’s a bad guy who messed up, but neither of them was ever good, right? Peter, just messed up, knowing that Jesus was merciful and loving, and that the mess-up wasn’t the end; Jesus would be faithful to Peter, even if Peter wasn’t faithful to Jesus. I think Judas hung himself because he lacked that trust. No matter what happened to Jesus, Judas felt like he’d ruined everything beyond repair. He didn’t get that nothing is beyond repair for God.

Often, I also don’t get that and I’d rather destroy myself than throw myself at the mercy of someone I betrayed.

Assuming We’re the Same

Cover of The Notebook

When I was a teenager, I read The Notebook and became
obsessed with it. It was the first book I managed to read before its
movie came out, and it was only the second contemporary adult novel
I’d ever been able to finish, so I felt very grown-up about it. My
obsession with the book led me to all of the special feature-like materials that went along with it, one of which was an interview with Nicholas
Sparks. In that interview, he said something that’s stuck with me
ever since.

 

 

The interviewer had already asked the obligatory questions about
where the inspiration for the book had come from, blah, blah, but
then he asked how Sparks had managed to write a novel that
represented voices of the young and the old, male and female, etc…
Sparks explained that he started with the assumption that all people
think and feel in basically the same ways. Of course he wasn’t
implying that everyone comes to the same conclusions about
everything, because you need only turn on Fox News to find evidence
to the contrary. What he was implying (I think) is that writing is
about revealing and honoring the human element in any situation.

 

 

Danger!
Danger!

 

 

There
are two extremes that go along with this and both of them are wrong. We
ought not to assume that others are just like us, nor should we
assume they are completely different from us. The way I’m currently thinking about it is sort of like one of my pet peeves about Barbies. Have you ever thought about how Barbies are all exactly the same size? Forget the fact that their bodies are stupidly unrealistic… they’re all unrealistic in exactly the same way, and they can all share all of their clothes. I’m pretty jealous of that, because it seems like there are very few people I can share clothes with. Point? Barbies are the same, but different. They all have the same structure, but it looks different on each of them. Some of them have brown hair, or skin; some have weird purple eyes or weirdly bendable legs, but they’re still basically the same thing.

It’s the same with people; even though emotions and thoughts manifest themselves differently on each of us, they’re sitting on the same basic, human structure.

The
reason I bring all of this up has to do with a conversation I had a
few weeks ago that I’m still thinking about. During the conversation, I felt like a friend was misperceiving my structure so extremely that I felt the need to say, “I’m
just a normal person.” I even felt a little Shakespearean about it… “If you prick me, do I not bleed?” I didn’t say that, but it might have fit the moment.

 

 

The
friend I was talking to seemed caught up on the differences between
us, and it reminded me of what Sparks said in his interview. My default tends to be the “We’re completely different” paradigm, and I think my friend was caught up in that paradigm right then too. It’s a really sucky paradigm for everyone involved becaus it puts people onto teams.

Which reminds me of Comicon.

I know that’s silly, but just stick with me. I really struggled not to hate everyone at Comicon this year (see this post for more details). But the reason I felt that way was because I was starting from the assumption that I was different from them. I was among the initiated. I mean, come on – I’ve read Transmetropolitan, so I’m obviously in the club. I’ve been to four – count them – one, two, three, FOUR previous cons. Also, I call it a con. I am on team “I Deserve to be Here”, and all of those teenagers clearly aren’t, so they should go home and play a little more D & D so they can eventually join the club. They obviously haven’t put in enough time yet.

The Right Way to Change (in Literature and in Life)

Pots – Water Pots (Photo credit: NisargPhotography)

As a writer, I struggle to create the pieces of a story that can’t be revealed through dialogue and plot. Part of the reason I struggle with this in writing is because I struggle with it in life. In everyday interactions, I rely almost entirely on what people tell me and what happens. Partly, I’m this way because as a teenager, I decided that it’s incredibly unfair to hypothesize or make assumptions about another person, and thus made it my mission to maintain a perception that matched up as completely as possible to the observable, real-world person in front of me as I could. However well-intentioned I may have been in trying to avoid unfair judgment of another person, though, I inadvertently led myself away from looking beneath the surface, which is quite the tragedy, because most of who we are is beneath the surface. For example, a character or person’s shifts of identity and heart might slowly manifest themselves in his or her behavior and speech, but the change occurs long before it becomes observable.

But how do I write that?

Also, how do people actually change?

Several years ago, there was someone who started attending my church, and almost immediately set out to change some of our stances on issues and certain doctrines we held to. When Dave (Pastor) and I were talking about the situation, I was overwhelmingly sympathetic to the new person. I expressed my beliefs that she wasn’t ill-intentioned and that she needed grace, as well as my broken-heartedness for her; I viewed the church’s response to her as a little mean.

Then Dave said something. He said that God is the one who changes us; she doesn’t get to direct that change.

As a writer, I’m ridiculously well-planned. I don’t like starting without an outline for each and every chapter, along with any number of other “plotter” tactics in place. I write character sketches; I create soundtracks for each scene; I draw maps, and I even create Sims characters or draw really bad sketches to ensure that nothing is left to chance… I have to know everything about every aspect of the story before I write. Then, I force my characters to do what I want them to do, and get frustrated when the plan has to change. And, instead of changing the plan, I just throw all of my work out and start all over at the beginning.

But what if there’s something to just sitting down and writing. I don’t subscribe to all the hippie, “pantser” mumbo-jumbo about letting the characters show me the story, but I also probably shouldn’t outline myself into a corner, eh?

In life, I’ve been trying pretty hard for the past couple of years to just see what happens. I usually stick myself into certain, highly-arbitrary routines, and force myself to keep them, but it seemed like God was ruining all of my routines for awhile there, so I thought that might have been His way of telling me to knock it off.

So I stopped.

I stopped planning every moment of every day; I stopped keeping routines that I didn’t feel like keeping; I stopped attending events that I didn’t have a good reason for attending… I just stopped.

And it’s really difficult to just exist and wait, but that’s what I’ve been doing. I know it probably doesn’t seem like that from the outside, because what others see is that I bought a house, signed up to go to Asia next year, shifted my teaching focus from ELLs to gen. ed., etc…. But, believe it or not, I haven’t been trying to do anything at all. I’ve just let things come my way. or not. and I’ve been patient.

Because changes happen mysteriously and invisibly, and it’s not for me to direct them.

Going off of what’s observable, it seems as if I’m changing in a few specific ways… but those changes are imaginary. Instead, God is changing me how He wills, in ways that haven’t yet manifested  themselves in words or actions.

Still, in the two years that I’ve been trying to be patient and malleable, a few people have said and done things that seem an awful lot like creating a Sim character of me and then trying to make me into that character.

And each time, I’ve felt myself struggling that same internal conflict that came with the new girl who wanted to change a church’s doctrines: Am I being mean by ignoring other people’s aims for me? Sometimes it feels mean, because I know what it feels like to look at another and think I know what he should do and be. I know what it feels like to believe I see his primary flaw and the one change that he should make in his life because it would fix everything.

And that’s why I’m still writing Weston’s story – because I’ve fixed him rather than letting him change slowly, invisibly, in a way that I can’t contrive.

So, while I know (all-too-well) the urge to just fix the problem, I’m trying to do a better job of reserving myself for the changes God has in mind for me (and for Weston too). It’s entirely possible that the flaws people see in me and the ones I see in Weston are terrible and need fixing… but those flaws aren’t for human hands to reshape, because only God’s hands are strong enough to change earthen vessels.

Attributes of an Outstanding Friend

 

The attributes of a good friend as evidenced by the outstanding characteristics my current friends exhibit:

 

Steve – In all situations, I’m convinced that Steve will not only know what to do, but execute it well and explain why his solution makes sense. He knows pretty much everything and is good at pretty much everything, and I’m often jealous of how much he understands. He also manages this without coming across as a know-it-all, because he’s also rather humble.

 

 

Lori –The primary reason I believe Lori and I have managed to remain friends is her calm and steady nature. In spite of several years when I was almost completely unavailable to Lori, we’re back to hanging out on a weekly basis. Most friends would have been like, “Screw Katie! She clearly doesn’t care about me!” However, Lori has never once made me feel terrible for my “Drops of Jupiter” trek out into the land of Salsa dancing and angsty stupidity.

 

 

Dave – My favorite attribute of Dave’s is the grace with which He corrects me. He’s observed quite a few of my darkest moments and managed to simultaneously rebuke, edify, and comfort me.

 

 

Lisa – Lisa is the best listener I know. God gave us two ears and one mouth because we’re meant to talk half as much as we listen, right? Lisa not only listens and asks questions, but she makes her words count. She doesn’t speak frivolously or carelessly; she uses her words to build up.

 

 

Matt – Of all my friends, the one I most often hope will be at group events is Matt. He lightens the mood, makes people laugh, teases, and plays. It doesn’t matter which combination of people show up to an event; if Matt is there, I feel confident I’ll have a good time.

 

 

Ashly – I think I have more in common with Ashly than I have with anyone else in my life. She loves literature, understands Comicon and other geeky fun, and just generally enjoys the things I also enjoy. She’s also a high school English teacher, which gives us hours of material to discuss.

 

 

Amy the Dentist – I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who is quite as humble as Amy is.

 

 

I think I’ve been in a phase of bad friendship. I’ve struggled to listen or even care about the people in my life. I haven’t prayed well for them or thought about what I can do to help them out, and I’ve been disappointed to discover incompetence, flakiness, condemnation, selfishness, rain-on-the-parade, and arrogance in my heart.